Microphones are used to obtain a voice signal from a speaker. Once obtained, the signal can be processed in a number of different ways. A wide variety of functions can be provided by today's microphones and they can interface with and utilize a variety of different algorithms.
Voice triggering, for example, as used in mobile systems is an increasingly popular feature that customers wish to use. For example, a user may wish to speak commands into a mobile device and have the device react in response to the commands. In these cases, a programmable digital signal processor (DSP) may first use a voice activity detection algorithm to detect if there is voice in an audio signal captured by a microphone, and then, subsequently, analysis is performed on the signal to predict what the spoken word was in the received audio signal. Various voice activity detection (VAD) approaches have been developed and deployed in various types of devices such as cellular phones and personal computers.
In the use of these approaches, false detections, trigger word detections, part counts and silicon area and current consumption have become concerns, especially since these approaches are deployed in electronic devices such as cellular phones. Previous approaches have proven inadequate to address these concerns. Consequently, some user dissatisfaction has developed with respect to these previous approaches.
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